Israeli historian: Truth to the claim that Jews used Christian Blood for rituals

By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz
Correspondent, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

Haaretz

Shvat 23, 5767

Bar-Ilan University on Sunday said
it would order Professor Ariel Toaff to explain the research
behind his new book about the centuries-old charge that Jews
killed Christians in ritual murder.

University
historian Toaff has raised a storm by alleging in his book
book that some blood libels - accusations that Jews killed
Christians in ritual murders to add their blood to matza and
wine on Passover - may be based on real ceremonies in which
the blood of Christians was actually used.

The
university said in a statement that "Bar-Ilan University - its
officers and researchers - have condemned, and condemn, any
attempt to justify the awful blood libels against
Jews."

The university said that as
soon as Toaff returned from a trip abroad it would ask him for
explanations regarding his research, adding "until then... we
should refrain from relying on baseless reports that have been
denied by Prof. Toaff himself and which, apparently, lack any
connection to the research itself."

"Pasque di Sangue"
was just released in Italy. It shocked the country's small
Jewish community - in part because he is the son of Elio
Toaff, the chief rabbi who welcomed Pope John Paul II to
Rome's synagogue two decades ago in a historic visit that
helped ease Catholic-Jewish relations after centuries of
tensions.

The author, who is considered an
international expert on Italian Jewry, delves into allegations
that resulted in torture, show trials and executions,
periodically devastating Europe's Jewish communities.

Historians have long dismissed the allegations as
racism, but blood libel stories remain popular in anti-Semitic
literature.

Jewish and Catholic scholars have
denounced Toaff's work, saying he simply reinterpreted known
documents - and has given credence to confessions extracted
under torture.

In an interview with the Italian
newspaper La Stampa, Toaff responded angrily to his critics,
saying, "My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of
fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition
and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who
belonged to the communities that suffered the severest
persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a
passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among
them ritual murder of Christian children."

Italian
rabbis issued a statement recalling that Jewish law has always
banned ingesting blood or using it for rituals.

Toaff's 91-year-old father said he was looking forward
to reading his son's book and examining the documents, but
stressed that according to the Torah and tradition, the
consumption of animal blood was strictly prohibited, not to
mention that of humans.

In an interview Friday with
The Associated Press, Toaff said, "There is no proof that Jews
committed such an act." But he added that the confessions do
hold some truth - as when the accused recount anti-Christian
liturgies that were mainly used on Passover, when the
Israelites' liberation from ancient Egypt became a metaphor
for Judaism's hope for redemption from its suffering at the
hands of Christians.

"These liturgical formulas in
Hebrew cannot be projections of the judges who could not know
these prayers, which didn't belong to Italian rites but to the
Ashkenazi tradition," he said.

The 65-year-old Toaff,
a rabbi who holds dual Italian and Israeli citizenship, said,
"I wanted to see how the Jews felt in this climate of hatred."

Monsignor Iginio Rogger, a church historian who in the
1960s led the investigation into the murder of a 2-year-old
Simon of Trento, for which 16 Jews were hanged, said many
scholars have concurred that the confessions were completely
unreliable.

"I wouldn't want to be in [Toaff's] shoes,
answering for this to historians who have seriously documented
this case," he said. "The judges used horrible tortures, to
the point where the accused pleaded: 'Tell us what you want us
to say.'"

The Anti-Defamation League chairman, Abe
Foxman, said, "It's hard for me to believe that someone,
especially an Israeli historian, would legitimize the baseless
claims of the blood libels."

Bar-Ilan University
spokesman, Shmulik Algrabli, said, "Professor Toaff is one of
the greatest scholars in his field, and we have confidence in
his scientific method. The contentions of the study will be
clarified when the author returns to Israel."